I'm Building a Resonator Guitar with Palm Pedals

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 2 Nov 2014 9:40 am

I recently removed the Multibender that I had on a lap steel. I hardly ever used it. After all, I have several pedal steels available at all times which give me much more versatility, and I always have a non-pedal D8 set up, so I rarely use lap steels. But it's too valuable a fitting to be stored away, unused. At first I thought of fitting it to a resonator guitar, but the dimensions are such that it would have to be attached to the spider, and it would probably take all the tone away. (Edit 3Jun15: I decided to do that anyway, and hope that it doesn't adversely affect the tone.)

What I'm currently planning is fitting it to a Jumbo 7-string guitar, tuned in the regular guitar tuning, BEADGBE. I shall be playing it without a tone bar, by the way. (Edit 3Jun15: I've changed my mind since then.)

Given the regular guitar tuning I'm looking around for what copedant to use. Considering the keys in which the guitar is usually played open, only the key of E allows the tonic, dominant and subdominant within the first two frets. (It has been said that the current guitar tuning was designed around playing in E or Emin.) By using a lever to raise the 2nd string B up to C, another to raise the 3rd string from G to G#, and another to lower the 5th string to D, by holding down an E chord and pressing all three levers you would get an A chord. In effect, since the pedal steel E9 tuning originated from an open E tuning, by pressing those three palm levers you're doing the same as you would on a pedal steel by pushing down the first two pedals.

Any suggestions?

By the way, for those of you who are not familiar with the Multibender, you can only alter the tuning of one string per lever, and since the springs are not powerful enough, if you lower a 6th string the spring won't pull it back to E after you release the lever, so you have to limit operation to the top 5 strings, preferable the top 4.

My Multibender is fitted with four palm levers. And I should mention, for those of you not familiar with palm levers, since you're using your palm to operate the levers, operating levers 1 and 3 without 2, for instance, would only be possible by retracting lever 2 for the duration of the number. It would be the equivalent, on the pedal steel, of pushing pedals 1 and 3 simultaneously, using only one foot, or think of pushing a left and right knee lever simultaneously with the same knee.

Keith Glendinning · Post by **Keith Glendinning** » 3 Nov 2014 12:43 pm

Hi Alan,
I've read all of your posts and can't for the life of me understand why you're doing this, unless it's just "to say I did it". Your have PSG's Lap Steels, Dulcimers and many other stringed instruments, so why would you progress with this experiment? Can't see anyone else trying to go with it.
Sorry for my comments,
Keith

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 3 Nov 2014 1:02 pm

I like to experiment, Keith. It's keeping an active mind that prevents me from stagnating.

If no-one has done something before, then it's worth trying out, if only to see why not.

I love to play the blues, and if I can combine some of the pedal steel pushes with all that hammering on and fingerwork that I play when I'm not using a tone bar, it's worth a try. You might also ask why I like to play a 7-string guitar when everyone else is happy with a 6-string. Well, try playing a boogie bass in E. You're okay in the E and A parts, but when you get to the B part you have to jump an octave. But if you have a 7th string tuned to B you don't.

Tom Margulies · Post by **Tom Margulies** » 3 Nov 2014 1:09 pm

Well I DO get it. Just think how boring music would be if people never experimented. I am sure that years ago some people thought it was absurd to attach a pedal to a perfectly good lap steel.... damned show offs!

Sounds like a worthy challenge.

Keith Glendinning · Post by **Keith Glendinning** » 3 Nov 2014 1:16 pm

Yes Alan, keeping an active and open mind with music and life is great. I'm 74 and can't remember when I had so much fun experimenting, whether it's new instruments to learn or new music to compliment them. I'm playing with a guitarist I last played with in the 1950's/60's and we're having a great time. We've both moved from 6 string Solids to anything that vibrates! I didn't mean to be derogatory in my post, just didn't understand why you wanted to do it.
However, I hope it works great,
Regards,
Keith

Keith Glendinning · Post by **Keith Glendinning** » 3 Nov 2014 1:45 pm

Me again.
There's a fabulously inivative Dutch guitar player called Carlos Vamos. He has many tunes on youTube and he's well worth the watch. He also does an instructuonal vid on how to fit a Floyd Rose whammy onto a Gypsy Jazz (Manouche stlye) acoustic guitar!!! It brought tears to my eyes when he ripped into the body, but I may be biased. I have a great Manouche guitar and wouldn't dream of "modifying" it in this fashion. "Sacrelige" of the highest order. But Carlos does it tongue in cheek and makes a good job of it. Incidentally, if you do check out his vids on the TOOB, you'll see a great Aussie player called Lyndsay Buckland on electric Dulcimer. They go under the title of "The Great Unknown" and play for "cash in the hat please" in quite a few European city centres.
Regards,
Keith

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 3 Nov 2014 2:06 pm

Thanks for the info., Keith. I'll be sure to check it out. No, I didn't find your comment deriding, I just figured you wanted to know why I bothered to keep experimenting. I've always enjoyed experimenting with musical instruments. I guess it goes back to my playing in skiffle groups, etc., in the late 50s/early 60s. There wasn't a great selection of instruments available in post-war England, as you know, so we had to make do and build our own, and I never stopped building.
Not everything I try works. I once built a lap steel with a tremolo arm. My idea was that you could apply vibrato with your right palm while you were playing normally with a steel. In reality it served no purpose.
I have a long list of things I want to try out. Shortly I shall be building a lap steel or a console steel with fanned frets. I have a theory that the reason a lot of people play out of tune is that your arm moves in an arc like a windscreen wiper, so it's not natural to hold a tone bar at right angles to the string, which requires a constant correction of angle with the wrist. I've built mediaeval citterns in the past with fanned frets; for a different purpose, of course.
But I have to ration my time. I have a model railway to work on, and some mediaeval pieces to play and record. My grandfather was a Birmingham tram driver, and he always told me that, once he had retired, he was so busy that he wondered how he had ever had time to go to work, and being retired myself now I entirely see what he meant. So many projects and so little time left.

Jan Viljoen · Post by **Jan Viljoen** » 3 Nov 2014 7:59 pm

Hi blokes,

Here is Lindsay playing midi dulcimer too. He plays it like a guitar.
There are so many creative musicians all over.

Alan go for it!

Wish I could visit all you blokes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--7y58P7d6I

Start designing 'em, then play 'em!

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 4 Nov 2014 11:57 am

Jan Viljoen wrote:...wish I could visit all you blokes...

Well you had better start saving your rands because we're all over the place.

I guess from South Africa you could fly east to San Francisco, then east to England and south back home, and make it a round-the-world trip. Let me know when to expect you. I'll have to put a MIDI pick-up on some of my instruments.;-)_
I have to say that I'm not really up to date on MIDI. The only thing I've used it for so far is percussion and bass tracks on some of my recordings. I write the percussion as music score and then play it back into one of my multitrack recorders. I don't use it with my mediaeval recordings, of course. They're all entirely acoustic, as you would imagine.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 16 May 2015 10:28 am

Six months on and I've decided to incorporate a resonator into the guitar I'm building to work with the Multibender palm levers. The body is almost complete and I'm currently working on the neck. I'll post pictures when the instrument is complete, and a soundclip.

Yes, progress has been slow so far, but I always believe in spending most of the time designing an instrument before I build it, rather than rushing right into it and making errors. The instrument has to be playable and sound okay when I've finished it.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 2 Jun 2015 3:38 pm

Here is progress so far with the instrument. The top is spruce and the sides, back and neck are cedar. I've bolted the Multibender to the spider, through the faceplate, which I've had to modify. They do make a Multibender for finished Dobros, but I don't like their design. I think that this will work better, but only time will tell. I'll post an instrumental on it when I've finished.

Yes, that is my model railway that you see in the background. It occupies two rooms in the basement and some of the track goes through the crawlspace.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 3 Jun 2015 10:17 am

Here's a shot of what I'm incorporating underneath the cone.

Edward Meisse · Post by **Edward Meisse** » 4 Jun 2015 1:32 pm

If I'm not mistaken, the Hudson Steel Guitar Company is making resonators with foot pedals and levers. Since my hands are going, I am thinking about getting one of those.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 4 Jun 2015 3:47 pm

There are several people making PedaBros, which are complete pedal steel guitars with resonators, and attachments to go onto resonator guitars, but they're all very expensive and they're not portable. Ron Steeeeeeeeeenwijk* has been building several of them lately.

I want a simple acoustic resonator guitar which can play all the regular Dobro pieces, but also have some of the flexibility and sounds that I can get from a pedal steel, although I know that I won't get all the features of one. For that, I'll have to get around to a project which I've been playing for years; putting a MultiKord mechanism into a resonator guitar worked with regular pedals.

*I tried to type in his name properly, but, for some reason, the Forum's computer keeps deleting it.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 6 Jun 2015 2:48 pm

Here's where I am so far. It's "in the white" right now, and I'm covered in sawdust.. I haven't decided what colour to finish it. I may finish it in sunburst. At the moment the neck is not yet attached to the body, and the fingerboard is not yet attached to the neck. The resonator and cover are not screwed in.

....and yes, my workshop, which is under the deck, IS messy. By the way,the only power tool that I ever use is a vibrating sander. I've seen too many luthiers with horrendous injuries from power tools, as anyone who knew Bobbe Seymour would attest.

You can actually rest you fingers on the face of a vibrating sander without any adverse effects.

This is what it looked like this morning. Who knows how far I will have gotten by tomorrow evening.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 15 Jun 2015 2:26 pm

Here is progress to date. Since my last posting I've glued the neck on. (It's a squared neck, by the way.) I haven't glued the fretboard on. I intend to fix it with little black screws, which will allow me to make adjustments once the instrument is completed, in case I need to alter the location of the bridge and/or nut, which would change the fret positions.

Today I glued the edging on.

Sorry the photo is a bit out-of-focus, but you get the idea.

The blue masking tape is to catch any excess glue that might run onto the sides, and the brown masking tape is to hold the edging in place whilst the glue dries. Some luthiers use big rubber bands to do that.

I should mention that most luthiers ream out the groove for the edging with a router. I prefer to do it by hand with an Xacto knife. It takes longer, and it's tough on the hands to cut into spruce, but I have an aversion to routers. Any idiot can make mistakes, but to really screw up a project you need a router.

I rarely use edge banding and purfling. It's just a personal taste.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 23 Jun 2015 5:37 pm

Time to look at the spider, and the position of the Palm Lever Unit relative to the original bridge position.
It was obvious that the original bridge had to come off if the palm lever bridge was to be located in the same place relative to the spider. Positioning it a little ways back in order to accomodate the original cast iron (or is it aluminium?) bridge would not transmit the sound directly to the spider. So I had to take a hacksaw to it....

A half hour of manual sawing and it was off....

The part that I cut off is directly to the right of the spider. I might use it to fabricate the roller nut.

The next job is to attach the unit direct to the spider. There's no hurry. Tomorrow will be fine.
In the meantime I'm in the process of applying the finish to the body.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 2 Jul 2015 4:01 pm

Edging masked to avoid overspray, and inside stuffed with newspaper...
(Machine tuners already screwed on, and Eagle motif glued to the headstock.)

After spraying, and with the masking tape and newspaper removed.

With the fittings placed on...

You will notice that the armrest and upper bout covers have been sprayed with Plastic Dip. It's made for tool handles to give them a protective rubber grip, but I like the satin finish and it wears very well. The top plate doesn't touch the spider or cone anywhere, and plays no part in the tone production. It's just for decoration. I shall be spraying that with the rubberised stuff, too.

I'm thinking of maybe spraying the palm levers with the stuff, too. That would make them less likely to slip from under my palm. I've been using it on tone bars for years and it works great. They never slip out of my hands no matter how animated I get during playing.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 3 Jul 2015 3:02 pm

The roller bridge. If it seems a little high, remember that the fingerboard, which is not yet attached, goes underneath it.
By the way, the scale length is 71.2 cms.

The rollers were tapped for me when I used to be the CFO of an engineering company, about five or six years ago. The spindle is tapped rod. That way, any time I want to alter the string spacing, all I have to do is just rotate the rollers into a different position.
A roller bridge is a necessity when you have pedals or palm levers.

Here's an updated photo of the cover plate, which I've sprayed with the Plastic Dip. It's not screwed down yet.

Alan Brookes · Post by **Alan Brookes** » 7 Jul 2015 10:37 am

I finished it last night. For those who would like to see some more photos, check out my recent post. http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... 92#2405192

Music sample to follow, when I've had a chance to play with it.